Census of Marine Life
The Census of Marine Life is an ambitious, 10-year program funded by the Sloan Foundation for the purpose of expanding our knowledge of what lives, has lived, and might live, in the world’s oceans. The program has funded a wide variety of research into the biodiversity of the Gulf of Maine.
One recently published study provides a fascinating analysis of historical fisheries—with shocking implications for the Gulf’s fisheries today. In this study, Karen Alexander of the University of New Hampshire, and several colleagues, analyzed the activities of fishing vessels operating out of Frenchman’s Bay, just east of Penobscot Bay in the eastern Gulf of Maine, in 1861.
Two hundred and twenty wooden sailing vessels, fishing with hook and line technology, plied the waters of the bay and the nearshore Gulf of Maine. The researchers were able to calculate the amount of fish each vessel caught and to estimate where the catch was made. According to Alexander and her colleagues’ calculations, this fleet landed two to three times as much cod in 1861 as fishermen landed in the entire Gulf of Maine in 2007. And much of this harvest was landed within 20 miles of shore—where today there are very few fish to be found.
What are the implications for today’s fisheries managers? George Lapointe, Commissioner of the Maine Department of Marine Resources, welcomes the work of Alexander and her colleagues: “The notion that we know what the unfished population was is pretty cool and useful. It gives us some ideas for discussion about what future targets might be. I want to add the caution that we may not be able to restore stocks to those levels, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk about it.”
Online Resources:
Census of Marine Life Web page
Gulf of Maine Area: Census for Marine Life Web page
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